TOTAL WAR STORIES/DISCUSSION THREAD

1/2

>Go across the pond to Apollonia, set on introducing the wild Macedonians to Roman steel

2/2

Cool.

Thx. Anyone else? I didn't mean to make mine so long but got carried away. Anyone else playing any Total War? Warhammer? Any cool stories to share?

Is Atilla any good? I heard it was better than Rome 2 but that's honestly not much of a compliment.

Maybe at launch but at both of their current states I can honestly say Rome 2 is the more enjoyable, it was able to fix some of it's problems while Attila is still a piece of shit.

If you want another TW game then wait for a sale and pick up Warhmmer, it's better than Attila in damn near every single way.

Feels good man

Just tried playing a co-op campaign in warhammer with a buddy, he was Chaos and I was VC. We got like 20 turns or so before we both got bored of it, it was basically the same as either of us playing a solo campaign and would have continued as such for probably at least another 20-30 turns. Thinking about it there really doesn't seem like any combination of races that makes any sense to play co-op as each race spends so much time dealing with their own race shit before interacting with the others that no campaign would really be co-op at all until like 50 turns in at least.

Now the Pope wants to call in debts he had from dead men

Honestly you need to be willing to invest time into co-op games

I play co-op Attila games semi-frequently with a few different friends and we like to conqour historically accurate places with their respective factions and build up their historical empires/kingdoms. I have a current playthrough I need to get back to one of these days where I play as the Ostrogoths and we take Italy and my friend the Visigoths take Hispania. We then basically go to war with anyone who doesn't meet our consensus. The VERY best part about it is having co-op battles where both our own armies siege a entrenched settlement. Another neat feature is when one or the other player is fighting a battle, while the player who is fighting with their forces can "gift" units to the spectator so that they might be able to have more complex reactions to enemies with two brains on the field instead of one.

Also, Medieval 2 Total War best soundtrack

Prove me wrong faggots, protip I will take your arguments into consideration, I think MTW and RTW are JUST beneath M2TW

My friend and I were wondering if there was something like that spectator control but either it isn't in Warhammer or we didn't find it.

Why should I argue with the truth?

I will say I have been enjoying the Warhammer sound track though, especially vid related

Am I one of the only faggots that prefers Attila over all other (((modern))) TW games?

Might as well play total wawa

I haven't played rome 2 in a long time, is it any better than launch? I heard it is

I wouldn't know tbh, bought the game years after it launched to see if it was that bad.

I had fun, but it didn't hold my attention.

Isn't having fun all games are meant to used for?

;^)

Pic related.

Anyway. Reminds me of the time I built an entire land bridge from Prussia to India in Empire.

Another quick one:


This fucking game, man. I swear.

Attila IS better than Rome 2 in many ways. It's just straight up more polished.

Kek, I have majority vote on deciding the papacy and without fail, every one of my cardinals I elect to be pope eventually gets pissed with me.

Because due to my warmongering, anti-diplomacy ways, pretty much every nation on the map hates our frog-eating guts and/or doesn't trust us. The Christian nations end up instigating shit with us, attacking our forces, then we retaliate and the Pope threatens to excommunicate. He does, we're forced to go after the same guy we just voted in, replace him with another of our guys and the cycle repeats.

Something about that damn hat that goes straight to these faggots' head. How quickly they forget it was through my good graces they ever became Pope in the first place.

I should add, I think the last guy is finally getting the message. Hungary attacked us, we retaliated, Pope threatened to excommunicate, we attacked– because fuck that noise, no one fucks with the French empire– and the Pope didn't say shit else.

From my last VH Dwarf campaign:

Also, I hate how Manichaeism is such an overlooked and shit religion in Attila. Always wanted to to a Manichean Horde campaign but I can never be bothered to go all the way to the fucking Hindukush just to convert.

Medieval 2 soundtrack is good, but this song from Rome is comfy as fuck.

Why aren't you niggers playing Europa Barbarorum II? It's what Rome 2 should have been, and more.

Because not everyone is as autistic about history as the EB people.

Every total war release in a nutshell.
Just add 2-3 years to their release date for when the game finally gets good.

Fuck, I must really be a warlord. My autism will not let this rest.

Y..You're going to destroy Estalia, right? You're going to conquer the world aren't you, user?

...

...

Naah, I don't really continue campaigns after getting a Long Victory.

Only time I conquered the entire map was in SH2.

5/6 of your posts are about warhammer, rome 2 or attilla

Had a story about Lombard too


Because first EB is better.

So?

I've played TW since Shogun 2. I love(d) Viking Invasion but those games simply don't run easily on modern hardware anymore.

Shogun 1 I mean

There will never again be a new good game about Rome.

Why is Medieval 2 so big? Did they remaster it or something?

...

If we're talking Rome OST, then this is the best.
Medieval II still better though

There are expansions, ACTUAL fucking expansions like the crusade, Teutonic wars, etc.
God i miss when expansions were like a new game


I don't really like Medieval 2's OST, i fucking love Rome's OST though.

Because it's incomplete.

I had a lot of fun playing as the Germans and the Greeks, but it's not finished, half the units don't have descriptions and and half the nations don't have proper units.

Is there a mod for Stainless Steel that has the shogun 2 deal of not having neutral armies cross your territories without permission or declaring war?

god damnit

Also are any of the post Shogun II games worth pirating?

Medieval 2 is my favorite because I find heavy cavalry charges erotically simulating.

I heard Attila isn't as big of a piece of shit as Rome 2, and that it adds all sorts of nifty features, but, as always, the AI is too retarded to use them properly.

Not really a story, but I found out that in Rome TW, it's actually possible for the a unit to friendly fire itself. I had a group of archers shooting at the enemy, and one of the archers shot another one in the back of the head.

You never knew? If you fire at an unit one of your unit are currently engaging you'll also get some of your unit killed.

No, I think he meant one archer within his unit managed to shoot another member of the same formation in the back of the head.

Agreed. Seeing people gettng launched up into the air is amazing. I can only hope Mount and Blade bannerlord has something similar.


He means an archer unit can fire on itself

Didn't that cavalry charge in one the videos showcase what happens when a charge crashes into an infantry line?

We know there is some semblance of physics to the game, if two horses collide they "bounce off" each other, if you are dehorsed you fly forward with momentum and crash into the ground, etc.

So the game can simulate collisions on a unit to unit basis, so I expect cavalry charges with crouched lances to be pretty fucking devastating.

I don't know, personally I haven't been watching the videos to avoid being overhyped.

Nice digits

There's not much to get overhyped about though. It's basically the standard M&B formula with nicer graphics and fixes to what people complained about in the first game (mainly sieges, diplomacy, settlement management and interface).

What I am hype about is their decision to go almost down to the metal in terms of what modding will be allowed to do, so I can already see a bright future of autistic excess for the game.

Wew lad, that's possible?

It's way better than it was at launch.

They released like 10 major patches for it to fix bugs, improve performance and AI, and balance the game by giving certain factions more unit variety, or power at the start.

It's still a mid-tier entry in the series at best, but people who judge it based on it's pre-patched form are idiots, it's gotten a lot better since.

Rome 1 and Medieval 2 projectiles are actual projectiles in the game world, so they'll register a hit regardless of what they hit.


Have they fixed the underlying issue of blobbing?

Empire < R2 < Napoopan = Attila < Warhammer < Shogun 2

Somewhat, but not everyone's happy with the end result.

There are a lot of mods that fix or adjust it though now.

What I can't really understand is why CA never learns from their games.

Medieval 2 did provinces well by forcing the player to specialize by turning it into a castle or city. Couple that with Shogun 2's food supply mechanic so you can't just max out every province so long as you have cash on hand and it makes the strategic layer far more engaging.

Also, historically important provinces, or just strategically important ones should have unique features about them, be it indigenous troops you can only recruit or specific bonuses for any unit you train there.

A thing Shogun 2 did properly was the difference between ashigaru and samurai troops. Ashigaru are cheap, but rout easily, while samurai are powerhouses, but cost much more to make. This same dynamic works extremely well for any time period, but especially those that feature feudal societies.

Another good aspect of Shogun 2 was the rock-paper-scissors mechanic between all the different agents, and the general removal of the superfluous clutter of pointless shit Medieval 2 unleashed upon the player.

With a more robust RPG system for the generals/family members and their skill and attributes having a bigger impact on the battlefield you could have a solid game.


I'll pass. Maybe I'll get Attila on a discount a few years down the line when the mods have matured a bit.

Can someone explain to me why Medieval 2 is considered the best?
Everything in the game is unpolished and clunky.
The combat is especially bad.
Melee combat in total war is just terrible

What pointless shit and clutter are you referring to so I can get a better understanding of this?

...

All the various agents that add very little to the overall gameplay and just bog down the map.

Sometimes, simpler is best.

You can't bring Christendom to the holy land in the others.

Did you perhaps think about widening the formation beforehand?

Are you actually blaming your soldiers for trying to follow orders or something?

Oh, I agree. Merchant was fucking useless

That is actually the only good point about the game. I like the idea of slaying non-christians and spreading the word of the lord.


It is total war. No "wait-in-a-qeueue" war. I want my men to surround the enemy and kill them not have a bunch of 1v1s that take 2 hours each.
And no changing formation does not help it is because the game is shit at melee combat.

Attack with various units from all sides, not one powerhouse from one side.

You're spearmen are supposed to keep the enemy occupied while you smash into their ass with Heavy Cavalry.

It's better, but AI is still stupid as fuck and the performance isn't too good either.

Formations exist for a reason you dumb nigger.

Did you even play the game? Your troops do gang up on enemies.

Maybe you should figure out what the purpose of cavalry is.

Were all TWs horribly optimized at launch? I could play M2 on an integrated card with no issues.

What is the point of heavy infantry then? I was under the impression they should be able to deal with a lower threat on their own.


So there is only one way to play it. Nice. However the battles in M2 feel neither realistic nor fun.
Don't get so triggered.

Yeah, it's called not playing it like a fucking moron.

Use your common sense. Units on higher ground have an advantage against their attackers, and while charging.

Infantry is used to pin the enemy down while you attack from the flanks or the rear with your cavalry. Spear wielding infantry is excellent against cavalry but weak against infantry armed with shorter weapons.

Learn to play the fucking game and stop blaming it because you are incapable of understanding the mechanics.

Heavy infantry decimate lower threats but not quickly(assuming they aren't like peasants or whatever unit that wouldn't show up in that era). They're powerful enough to serve as both attackers or locking down a troop for a flanking attack by spears or horsemen.

...

Just play rome 2 with divide et impera mod.
10/10 game.
Without the mod: 5/10.

Thera is officially the comfiest mod for Medieval 2. Everyone should have it.

...

Wow a measly 50 denars from some fuck that costs 300 and gets taken over by an even better jew or gets assassinated

Occasionally I feel like going back to play Medieval (1): Total War, but then I remember the utterly broken turn system. Basically, you move your armies and units first. Then the AI nations see your moves and can react during their move phase. Then battles are resolved.
Or
And it's not just armies either
So the AI gets to both react AND get the initiative on the world map scale. I don't understand how this made it to the release. I wonder if there's mods to fix this.

...

You have much to learn about the path of m2 jewry.

How is a game considered good if there is only one viable approach? I don't like cavalry and prefer to have endless armies of footsoldiers. In NTW this is viable because your inf can repel cav attacks and at the same time actually kill other inf.
I am aware that you are supposed to hold the enemy in the center and flank him with cav but once you did that two times it becomes fucking boring.
In Empire and Napoleon I won battles where I was heavily outnumbered and had unfavorable army comps by maneuvering my troops cleverly.
But M2 apparently only has the one viable tactic as all you sperglords are happy to point out.

I spent extreme amount of time in the first Medieval, and you get used to it and prepare accordingly after a while. A much worse thing about the game was that half the world was 'rebels' who got bribed for measly amounts of gold, and bribing literally gave you their entire army, down to the last troop. You could blame enemy armies too, albeit usually for greater amounts of gold, but still. Since you're swimming in gold after you get a decently sized empire, the game turns into a merchant simulator

bribe* not blame. Fuck

Oh, okay, I see where the problem lies.

You are a fucking imbecile.

They completely or almost completely switched out their team at one point. The people who made MW2 just aren't there anymore.

I really wish CA took steps to curb territory blobbing. By mid game you become so large that there is nobody that can effectively challenge you anymore.

I'm likely one of the few people that actually enjoys Realm Divide in Shogun 2 specifically because it gives some amount of challenge to the late game.

Paradox games put all manner of restrictions in place to slow down the map painting, and Total War games should as well. Famines, plagues, rebellions, culture conversion, infamy, alliances against you, Papal intervention, you name it, throw as many monkeywrenches into the player's path as they can think of so it doesn't become a snoozefest of crushing poorly made enemy unit stacks with your elite army of death.

Hell, just do the historical thing and ensure the upkeek of armies is astronomical, and that, during harvest season, you don't get access to the cheaper kind.


Yeah, I know, but it doesn't take a genius to see what worked in the previous games and keep it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel each time, especially when, from game to game, the same issues of AI problems, sieges and a downward difficulty curve keep on persisting.

...

I'm glad that mystery was solved.

It's not one viable approach user, you can decide not to play with calvary if you so wish it(I believe some factions don't even have them?), just know that you must keep mobilizing your entire army to win. In a one on one fight heavy infantry will probably always win, but remember it's called total war. Absorb charges with heavy infantry or spearmen, then move your other heavy infantry or spearmen into the flank or rear and watch the enemy get routed.

You can even stick with General's bodyguard, they're my go-to guys in the early game since calvary is incredibly costly and money is kind of tight at the start.

You will probably suffer for not choosing calvary with a faction that has them, an army requires all types of units to function well.

You will never create a difficulty system that doesn't turn downwards for a large player empire. Even Realm Divide was easily dealt with by just not taking that last province and turtling up first.

They attempted to go the opposite direction with the Chaos Invasion in Warhammer but that, too, is incredibly easy to deal with.

Are you guys getting paid by CA or something? Why are you so butthurt about M2 being boring?

Try Attila as Western Rome and enjoy the rape you're about to receive. Basically, the vast majority of your income is lost by 'corruption' that gets higher the bigger you are, and the enitre Roman empire had about as much income as some Arabian retards. It was pretty stupid, but it did punish blobbing severely.

Except total war is all about the battles, and the map is more of an afterthought bonus.

We're not butthurt, we're mocking you for being a retard. You use terrible tactics, and then whine about the game punishing you for said terrible tactics.

...

Yeah, I did actually conquer the entire world as Italy way back when, so I learned to deal with the broken system. Now I just feel like it's such a flaw that it really puts me off from playing it again.

Yeah, footsoldiers played like no role at all. Horses also did real well when scaling walls as we all know.

You can if you keep the size balanced with threats of rebellion, large upkeep costs of stationary armies to defend borders and pay for all the infrastructure and by making it progressively harder to keep expanding the more provinces you have under your control and the farther they are from your core.

This would force the player to not only have to balance the economy and watch out for rebellions, but also slow his advance down because he can't suddenly field too many armies and needs to decide where to prioritize his military focus.


I don't really care about historical accuracy as I care about keeping the gameplay engaging.

That's fair, but the strategic layer should enhance the battles, not be just pointless filler.

I'd much rather be forced to make alliances with other factions to secure one side of my empire so I can wage war in another than just fight everyone, all the time, because I have endless supplies of money and keeping large armies on the field is trivially easy.

see

Did you learn your history from playing TW games? Or are you just a victim of american "education"?

Can't have anything to do with the tremendous advantage their mobility grants them, can it?

People already pointed out to you how you can use infantry effectively. The game does a good job of showcasing their role in that period.

They were the anvil against which you pressed the enemy against, cavalry was the hammer.

Now you're starwmanning again.

meant for obviously

vikings and scots are pretty well built for going without cav for the most part.
Really only need horsies for running interference against enemy missile cav when you're fighting on plains or something. The rest of the time you can just chop people apart on foot.

???

Yeah archer cav is a pain in the ass to fight with nothing but infantry but it's doable assuming you have your own archers and have clever positioning to box them in.

Why don't you read about the spread of the use of stirrups and better saddle designs, and how they allowed for better leverage when using weapons and a far more devastating transfer of power from the charge of the horse to the tip of the spear/lance?

Why don't you read how these technologies combined lead to longer and heavier lances being deployed over time, and how horse breeding resulted in larger and more and more aggressive warhorses?

Calvary was the dominant force on the battlefield during the Medieval period, and was not completely dethroned until the appearance of viable gunpowder weapons and national armies.

Now kill yourself.

What I'd like would be more options to reshape the world without taking it all over personally. Like converting countries to my religion, releasing friendly states and especially in Shogun 2 forming a permanent alliances. The realm divide was an alright mechanic, but it sucks I have to treat everyone as an enemy and wipe them out preferrably sooner than later because even vassals would jump on you when the shogun cried about bullying.

I like how the frickin Irish get light cav with AP axes early on. Those guys ruled.

At least there's mods that ensure long standing vassals stay allied to you once Realm Divide hits.

I just feel abandoned ;__;
All my allies are dead, and i killed them

reminds me of all my europa universalis playthroughs…

I just bribe the pope every turn once i have a decent cash flow until he's on the best possible terms with me, then i can pretty much do whatever.

Don't forget to keep the bribes coming every so often

Any papal issues can be solved with a few chests of gold, and its easier/cheaper than going to war with half the christian world because the pope's mad at you.

It's best to permanently have a diplomat next to Rome renewing a ten turn "donation" deal.

I suggest you stop learning history from video games as it is not accurate. I thought you are just some angry sperg who likes to suck CA dick but I guess you are genuinely retarded.
Maybe you will learn some history once you get into high school.

Most cavalry lances from antiquity up until WWI were the 2.5 meter stabbing lances. The Greek Kontos and spears like it were what you'd see almost everywhere.

The massive jousting poles seen in late medieval settings were the exception, not the rule.


Sorry pope-kun but you should have been nicer to the guy who owns everything west of the danube

idk wtf you smokin heavy armored knights were used well up into the 15th century after which advances in missile technology and infantry tactics made heavily armored cavalry obsolete.

the byzantines made use of all sorts of cavalry up through the late 1000s, mostly mounted archers, but they had cataphracts and medium lancers as well for when the situation called for it

No you fucking nigger, pike formations evened the ground with cavalry a little, but cavalry was still a fucking menace, as it was highly mobile and could simply fuck up any unit without pikes, or wait for their own footsoldiers to engage the pikemen and then charge from the back. Cavalry was the most important and most deadly part of any army throughout the middle ages, until the reign of gunpowder, end even then it was still used for centuries afterwards.

meant 1100s, after 1204 they got rekt by venetians and turks, gg no re

but cavalry was definitely used all over, if not for direct assaults then it was used in maneuvers, flanking, and ambushes. is right, and lancer cav was used all the way up through WWI

Well, this turned stupid quickly.

But also featured with the most powerful heavy cavalry on the planet.


He also forgets that Swiss pikemen were an elite unit, and besides landsknechts nobody actually managed to effectively replicate their effectiveness.

They're excellent shock troops and great in chasing down routing enemies.

I think most people overvalue the strengths of gun wielding infantry. I had much fun fucking over people in Fall of the Samurai MP by swarming their line infantry with yari ashigaru, leaving my ranged infantry to gang up on his formations that weren't getting slaughtered in melee combat.

Helping the pope move is obviously good idea after he and his buttbuddies can't threaten you anymore.


Introduction of gunpowder in Europe coincidences with the overall trend of economic growth and political centralization so people easily assign the changes like the waning of aristocratic heavy cavalry to a simple solution of firearms.

...

Even then, it played an important role through the early 1800s

Dishonourablu.

You had sabre and lance armed cavalry units right up until the beginning of WW1, and they even saw action during the early stages of the war.

By that point it was almost exclusively because some overly romantic french faggots in high positions were still championing their efficacy along with bayonet charges and shit.
It was only sheer retardation keeping them in the game for the last century there.

No, it was because you didn't have any other shock troops, nor anything else that could effectively chase fleeing units down.

Cavalry didn't exist just for shit and giggles, it actually had a purpose, if only because there was nothing else available that fit its role you could replace them with.

after the invention of the gatling gun, yes, it was pretty much just for shits and giggles.

Gatling guns weren't that potent. Their rate of fire was slow, they were big, heavy and expensive to move.

Do you think both sides during the US Civil War would have bothered with cavalry if it didn't have its purpose on the field of battle?

It was their very first outing in a war, they hadn't had a major influence on strategic thinking yet. It was new fangled tech and they opted for what they knew and trained for.

Just because they did it doesn't mean it was the right choice, even if their line of thinking was somewhat reasonable. But with the horrendously high, and fast, casualty rates for units that saw combat, it's pretty clear that mistakes were indeed made.

they in first sentence = gatlings
they in second sentence = military leaders

>Byzantine general left with on siege tower (superlative kek) as last means of breaching my walls

Classy

I enjoyed your greentext, but why are you waging war on mt precious Byzantines? ;_;

Sorry user, there's no brakes on this train. The entire globe will be French before i'm through.

Also, what the fuck is it about Nicaea that you Byzy fucks love so much. They've attacked me like 3 times and taken it back twice. I thought they'd be more upset about Constantinople but they're flipping their shit for this ratty little town. What gives?

divide et impera is literally 1 hour for 1 battle

Sure you get the "realism" and the "immersion" but yeah fuck that, I want to finish a campaign in less than a month not a year

What, you don't want campaigns to take at least 100 hours? I bet you're some kind of filthy casual who doesn't even like Byzantium.

You're looking at 1000+ campaign for divide et impera

and nigga my ideal rulers are Justinian, Constantine, and Hadrian

How dare you ever doubt my love for anything Roman though, I just don't see the point in a wasting an hour on a skirmish. Last time I played Divide Et Impera I spent almost 2 hours, 2 fucking hours taking over a settlement and only lost 200 units, fuck that.

Attila is fast, balanced, plus medieval kingdoms total war soon so get hype

They will find a way to fuck it up. It's guaranteed.

And nobody will bother fixing the same goddamn issues they've been dragging around ever since Rome.

I did my first campaign in RTW a while ago as the Julii and ended up conquering everything. Now I'm playing with the Extended Greek Mod but I'm starting to get annoyed at how fucking tedious the battles can be, especially sieges.

The mod is pretty neat though. I like way it differentiates between Hoplites and Phalangites, and the larger world map is great.

Atilla was a good game. Shame they basically broke the campaign with the final patch.

What happened to it


This is a mod not CA

Well, fuck.

On the campaign map the AI will blindly bullrush the player ignoring all other enemies. The battle AI also went to crap. The latest dlc's were basically p2w factions because it's Sega.

That's right user, not only that but over 32 factions so far with over 700 units, restoring byzantium will be glorious and I will finally be able to enjoy a medieval total war game because I'll be the first to say it medieval 2 was way too clunky and slow to enjoy now


That's bullshit, glad I got my playthrough with Western Rome on very hard before it was broken

While I have all the respect in the world for modder and what they can accomplish I'm not really sure that the mod will actually top M2 in terms of gameplay.

First thing first, cavalry charges with properly simulated collisions are a must, and far as I can see Attila isn't exactly doing that good job of it.

Also, what are the hard coded game limitations? What can they realistically do in terms of adapting the mechanics of Attila to the medieval period? Will I be able to specialize cities like I could in M2?

I swear to god, in rome, greece or macedonia have it the easiest due to the sheer fast income of the west anatolia/greece region

I wish they'd introduce population mechanics in the game, so that if you keep spamming units you eventually end up depopulated and without anyone to harvest the fields.

Some of my most fun campaigns have been migration campaigns where I just pack my shit up turn 1 and go elsewhere. Spartans in Ethiopia and shit like that.

the end is nigh, gents

I'm going to get fucked, but watching the AI scramble over land feels nice.

That'd be great especially if you had too much big of a population then it'd be cheaper for units to be created, along with that create a supply line mechanic and maybe some others


Not entirely, get well trained units and hold fast, I've routed armies 9 times larger than mine on very hard by just keeping a couple veteran elites outside the gate and mopping up the trash outside the castle

TITUS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STAND UP AND DEFEND YOUR LANDS, YES YOU CAN PUSH THEM OUT, IT ONLY NEEDS IRON WILL AND COURAGE. COME, TAKE MY HAND AND LET'S FORGE A LEGEND WORTHY OF JULIUS CAESAR, RISE AND CONQUER

I m pretty sure it was the case in older total war games.

Yes but they were pretty badly implemented.

CURRENT YEAR

This isn't a Judaism Simulator. You're playing it wrong.

How dare you question the beauty of those fine Arabic women

just rome 1 right? you could jumpstart towns by moving a bunch of junk peasants there and disbanding them.

I question them inbred genes.


That's another thing that is really underutilized.

Colonization, migrating your population to boost growth of smaller settlements and converting/shoahing the population of a province so you can claim more lebensraum for your population.

Vorenus and Pullo were plebs baud

Did killing off the natives in ME2 actually do anything other than keeping order in line a bit?

Not really, you just fucked yourself over by short circuiting growth.

I will never understand why these "grand" strategy games shy away from the more unsavory aspects of life in those times. If I want to cleanse a place of its native population I should be free to do so.

Pretty much the only reason to play Total War I figure is for the tactics level game. The Grand Campaign is fucked imo and just provides an excuse to go through the various tech levels.

One thing that often rubs me raw is the way they handle experience for instance. If you replenish a unit through passive supply or via a castle, your unit keeps all of its experience. Meanwhile if you merge it with a new unit you water it down incredibly, but in practice its the same shit ain't it? You're throwing a lot of fresh faces into a unit that's down to a quarter of it's original fighting force. There should be an experience loss regardless, but the fact they're being trained by those 30-50 gold rank super veterans should also impact that.

I think you can genocide entire populations in Stellaris, but I've heard mixed things about it.

Then what's the point of including the strategic map if they're not going to put any effort into it?

Yeah, just make it so that passive replenishment suffers a lessened experience loss.

It just looks so bland and uninteresting. Guess it will take Paradox upward of two years to roll out all the cut features as DLC.

Who knows. I'm of the opinion that if they're going to continue to be so lazy about city development and diplomacy, they may as well just put more emphasis on the military element. Almost something to the effect of how in The Last Roman you could conquer cities for Byzantine, but controlled your military like a Horde faction.

They'd have to bother not making the AI retarded for that.

Seems to me that CA just has these neat ideas, tries to implement them, gives up halfway through and hopes the shiny new graphics will sell the game.

And we are talking about issues that have plagued all their games since the first Shogun, yet they have never taken any serious steps to address them.

...

Neither did Shogun 2. That was a huge missed opportunity.

I would have loved to go and attempt to conquer Korea and China, or play as the Ming or the Mongols.

Also, I wish they'd do something more substantial with your family characters, take notes from Crusader Kings, and add lots of personal events that add traits and change your characters' stats.

...

Kek, guess megalomania isn't for everybody.

Have you tried *snicker* diplomacy.

Like, partnering up with some allies across the pond. You might have to give up a few juicy properties for their assistance, but once you're strong enough and back on your feet, you can take them back. Be sure and get some tribute shekels out of the deal. Oh, and make sure the diplomat you send is the best of the best so you get the best deal possible.

If none are high enough, get their stats up by making small potato deals with your neighbors, easy stuff anybody would agree too, map info for map info for example. Trade deals, alliances.

You guys played Medieval 2. Because the Mongols show up about half, 3 quarters of the way through that campaign and holy shit are they fucking OP.

1/2

stellaris looks grand but its puddle deep. i was expecting at least ckii levels of depth and i guess it was but since there's no focus on characters/dynasties its just easy and boring. doesn't matter what race you pick since every game end up playing out the same

2/2


And now the Timurids are here, with elephant mounts. This should be fun

I thought that the Byzantines were literally retarded if you cap'd for them in that DLC

The battle AI in Warhammer is surprisingly good. It manages to pull off flanking attacks much better, at least.

On the campaign map, it can even set ambush traps.

Are there any other Total War players like Volound? Someone recommended Legend of Total War, but most of the battles he fights in have him outnumbering the enemy, while Volound usually takes on lopsided odds.

I don't post here often since I'm not that into vidya but is this game similair to Europa Universalis IV?